Two Months After Reinvention

That title was come upon hopefully, after I received my borrowed Flip videocam in the mail. I had lent it out to a University of Alabama student because together we had created a video that I didn't seem to be able to transmit electronically so I sent him the whole camera.

It seems I am the world's leading expert on the life and work of Marietta Johnson, a 20th century visionary educator who lived in my hometown of Fairhope, Alabama. For more information about her, click here or here for websites, most of which I wrote, or buy my book which puts the lady in the context of her town and her times.

I got my camera back and made a little video of myself showing how I've changed since starting my reinvention program April 1. It was shorter than usual, less that three minutes, so I thought it would be relatively easy to post here. Wrong. I tried about ten times yesterday, using both my Internet servers, and was told there was an error in processing. I tried again just now and got the same error message.

Rather than leave you with nothing but a post about Susan Boyle's triumph and trials, I decided to put up a post about the reinvention, and you'll just have to believe me about how I look.

Since my personal reinvention is little more than an optimum-nutrition diet, I can report on that phase. After posting on the blog, discouraged, that I really wasn't losing weight, I followed the suggestion that maybe the reason is that I am retaining water. I followed up by adding a glass of water with fresh lemon every morning first thing, and added a couple of glasses of water during the day, and I think that helped. Although I have changed my way of eating and have been rather diligent, I have lost only six pounds in two months, but that is a respectable amount, and the weight loss is beginning to show.

I didn't get on the diet to lose weight, but just to change my eating habits. Everybody has a downfall if he has a weight issue; mine is not junk food, but snacks. Having done the Atkins diet for years, I convinced myself that nuts and cheese were not really fattening, so those became my addiction when watching late-afternoon television. I don't have to tell you that over time this has added pounds.

As for the rest of my optimum life plan, I do go to the gym four days a week and workout on the machines, and I live in Hoboken, so I walk everywhere and have a fourth floor walkup apartment. Hoboken requires a lot of fresh air and exercise.

I'm two months into the reinvention and have no plans to curtail the project. It's not a diet that I will abandon, I simply started to think differently about things. I can report that I am fine (I had no health problems anyway), I am happy (I've never been anything but), and that my personal reinvention is nothing more than a commitment to keep doing what I was, only in a better way.

One of these days I'll get that video working and show you how I look.